One Response to “Warning! Full Council on 23 July is when changes to public speaking may be approved.”

The argument for / against the restrictions of public speaking are essentially democracy vs. council meetings of reasonable length.

My personal view is that democracy needs to be sacrosanct and that if people feel strongly enough against a council proposal to want to speak publicly against it, then the council should listen because the people might actually be right.

If this results in lengthy council meetings, then that is just a fact of life in a democracy. But no, the council – or rather Tory councillors – believe that their time is too valuable to waste with such things as free speech, and would rather limit democracy than put in more time themselves. Frankly, if they don’t have the time, they should give up their seat on the committees in favour of a Councillor who does.

Of course this is made even more ironic when these proposals are made by a Tory Cllr (Ray Bloxham) who has a reputation for lengthy speeches during which he quotes at length from written reports, thus creating lengthy meetings whilst adding no value. Not to mention lengthy debates on topics (like the evils of illegal drugs) which are the remit of national government and of no real import to local government.

It will be another irony (if not plain old dishonesty) if we recall Tory Council Leader Paul Diviani’s election pledges to listen to the people – clearly this is an election pledge which is easy to fulfil when the people are not allowed to speak. It appears that George Orwell may have got everything right except being 30 years too early.

The East Devon Alliance has asked me to write to my local councillor, and the gist of my letter is to request him to think carefully before he votes on both Cllr Wrights motion to affirm support of democracy and on the Leadership motion to curtail democracy, and then to vote on his conscience rather than as his party might wish. Personally I am sending this as a letter by Royal Mail, because I believe that physical correspondence is less easy to ignore than an email. Hopefully I will be able to attend the Council meeting on 23 July to see just how he votes.

I urge you to put pen to paper – or fingers to keyboard – and to write to your own councillors telling them in your own words why they should support democracy on 23 July. If you can attend the Council meeting to see for yourself what happens, all the better.